Elder's Tea

Last week, on March 27th, Division 2 hosted our Elders and community members for our school's monthly Elder's Tea. Our class worked hard to prepare for Elder's tea, learning how to play the drum and learning the rhythm and words of many new drumming songs. When our Elders arrived, we played them a Welcome song.

Click on the video above to hear a complete recording of our Welcome song.  

After our Welcome, we showed our Elders the other songs we learned to play with Harvey.  Even though they were a bit nervous to play for an audience for the first time, Division 2 did an excellent job of drumming and singing with confidence. Some brave volunteers sang the Laughing song for our guests, and we even got some parents up to play with us!

The Laughing song was a big hit!

After drumming, we shared snacks with our guests and showed them around our classroom. There were so many smiling faces at our Elder's Tea this month.

Baby sisters get in on the drumming.

Riannon's own drum.

Lots of hugs to go around.

Check out those smiles!

There was lots of love for the little ones! 

We had a great turn out.

Three generations of ladies!

Families had a chance to check out some of our awesome art work. 

What a fantastic afternoon!

Leave us a comment: 


Which of your family members and Elders came to our Elder's tea? 


What was it like to perform in front of an audience? 


What was your favourite part of the Elder's tea? 

Elder's Tea - Tuesday March 27th

Division 2 will be hosting Lytton Elementary School's monthly Elder's Tea on Tuesday, March 27th at 2:00pm. 

Please join us for coffee, tea, and snacks. Bring your drum, and join us in a drumming circle. 

If you've been reading our blog lately, you'll have seen that we have been practicing drumming with Harvey Dunstan every Friday. We are so excited to share our drumming with our Elders at the Elder's tea! Don't forget to bring your drum with you to the Tea so that you can join us in singing and drumming all our favourite songs.

This week, our class made paper drums to give to our Elders as an invitation to the Elder's Tea. Take a look at our beautiful artwork!

Our paper drums took a lot of work to make. We made the drum "skins" out of crumpled paper and painted them with tea bags! When the tea dried, it had stained our paper a light brown. The crinkles in the paper held on to more of the pigment of the tea, so that is what made the darker brown lines and spots. We made our drum frames with card stock and laced them with twine and raffia. When our drums were assembled, we painted on designs. We modelled our drum invitations after the drums we play with when we practice drumming with Harvey. 

We can't wait to show you everything we've learned about drumming! See you on the 27th! 

Leave us a comment: 

Who will you be inviting to our Elder's tea? 

Ask your Elder: What is their favourite drumming song? 

What song is your favourite to drum or sing? 

Drumming Lessons

Every Friday, Harvey Dunstan joins us in the afternoons to teach us about drumming. One important thing that we have learned from Harvey is that if you play your drum louder than the leader of the song, you take over the song and people will follow your lead. Harvey has been showing us how to drum a St'at'imc Welcome Song, and we're getting really good at it! 

Click on the image above to watch a video clip of 

Division 2 and Harvey playing the Welcome Song

Last Friday Harvey taught us THREE new songs! He taught us a Four Directions drumming song, and told us about how people from different areas perform the song in different ways. In Harvey's drumming group, they point to each of the 4 directions while they drum. Sometimes people drum the song standing and facing each of the 4 directions. 

Harvey also showed us how to play the Women's Warrior song. He told us that it is important not to sing or play your drum louder than the women drumming when you play this song!

 

Harvey also taught us a drumming song that he made up with the LES students that have been joining him for drumming circle at lunch hour. They named this song the Laughing Song, and you can see why! 

Click on the image above to watch a video clip of 

Division 2 and Harvey playing the Laughing Song

Leave us a comment: 

Now that you have learned more about drumming, will you try drumming at a drum circle? 

Which drumming song is your favourite?

What do you like the best about learning how to play an instrument? 

 

Drumming

Division 2 is learning how to play a new instrument! We tried our hands at the Glockenspiels earlier this year, and now we are learning about drums.

Harvey Dunstan is teaching us about drumming.

 Harvey Dunstan, a local drummer, is teaching us about how to drum. Today we learned how to warm up our drums and how to hold our drums.

Harvey is teaching us how to play a song on our drums. We practiced all hitting our drums at the same time. It sounds really powerful when we all end on the same beat!

Thank-you, Harvey!

Leave us a comment: 

Have you ever played a drum at a drum circle or a pow-wow before? 

Do you have a drum of your own at home? 

What other instruments do you know how to play? 

Art Napoleon

First thing on Monday morning we took the bus up to the highschool to see a special performance called Art Napoleon. We were in for a treat!

Art writes songs that combine his Cree language with popular music.

Art and Marty played the guitar, base, drum, and harmonica.

Art and Marty played many different kinds of music for us. They sang us a folk song, a country tune, a rock and roll song, a reggae jam, and more! Art told us about different famous singers who influenced him as a musician. Art put a Cree-twist on every song, writing lyrics of his own in the style of popular songs. What a great way to learn about the Cree language!

Art and Marty invited students to play percussion instruments like the tambourine.

Division 2 got invited up to dance ... check out those moves!

 Art and Marty really encouraged us to help out during their performance! They invited students up to play percussion instruments and dance. Division 2 got invited up to dance ... but most of us were too shy to show off our awesome dance moves. Not Miss. OC, though!

Do you recognize this punk rocker?

Soon, there were lots of willing volunteers!

We can keep a beat!

Check out this video clip of Art and Marty's performance! The song they're singing is a old rock and roll hit - can you recognize it?

At the end of Art and Marty's performance, they invited everyone up to start a circle dance. It was a lot of fun sharing the dance floor with younger students, highschool students, and teachers! Alexis from Division 2 took some excellent photos of our circle dance. Even the ones that turned out blurry look really neat! Thank-you for your excellent photography, Alexis!

We did a circle dance to Art and Marty's last song. 

 

What a great looking audience! 

Leave us a comment: 

What did you enjoy about Art and Marty's performance? 

What did you learn about the Cree language from Art? 

What is your favourite kind of music?